semblance she bore few marks of its changes. At fifty, after nearly
twenty years of traveling on foot, heavily laden and the prey of all
weathers, she was singularly little worn. Her hair was still more
black than gray, and her eyes, although at times they harbored an
unfathomable sadness, had not lost their glow. Still she pushed her
red cart up and down the coast roads--roads which now too often echoed
with the snorts and puffs of vehicles akin to Mr. Wescott’s; still she
arranged to reach the Wescott village in early June. Not once, indeed,
did she deviate from that now long-established custom, even when the
assurance of the later arrival of the four Wescotts, vacation-bound,
might have tempted her to postpone her coming. Them she saw in
midsummer or early fall, often making the journey by rail and by stage
particularly for that purpose; but her first visit of every spring
continued to occur, as it had begun, with the drifting of the petals
and the drying of the roads.
Those who understood her best saw in this tenaciousness an almost
pathetic adherence to custom, which, as she grew older, became
not only the dominating motive in her life but also the source of
untold strength and comfort. Shorn and stripped by the very force of
circumstances of those observances which, hallowed by centuries of
reverent usage, had come down to her, she clung to the places and
persons that, upon her first coming to this new land, had been most
closely identified with the old. For, kind as had been this country of
her adoption with its easy peace and plenty, she felt as she grew older
a disquieting sense of its incompleteness and of her own strangeness
within its welcoming gates. Thus it happened that when Raphael, now a
prosperous American business man in a cigar store, bought and furnished
by his mother’s capital, refused to answer her when she spoke to him in
his native language, and when the new Scandinavian husband of little
Mary laughed stupidly at the cakes which, on the days commemorating
ancient festivals, she brought into his bakeshop, she longed for the
drying of the familiar roads along which she had left the thoughts and
memories of so many years.
Those winding coast roads, which led around quiet coves where herons
stood in the clear, still water, past stretches of gray, wind-vexed
sea and over upland pastures fragrant with bayberry, mitigated in some
degree the tragedy in which Mary Christmas as the years went by had
found herself an unwilling actor. It was the old, bitter tragedy of
Age contending with Youth and going down before it--a tragedy older
than that of Lear or of Isaac and his sons, old as life itself, and
enhanced a thousandfold in its cruelty when enacted by immigrant
children who willingly crush beneath their feet all that their parents
have held sacred. Defeated at home, Mary Christmas took to the long
familiar roads, in the courses of which during those first years she
had lived over again so much of her life. Along that particularly
lonely stretch of woodland she had sung of Vartan; under that great
pine which afforded such a sweep of tossing blue water she had imagined
that she was looking upon the Mediterranean, her homesick eyes dim with
tears; in that clump of sumach, red in the September sunshine, she had
fallen asleep and dreamed that avenging blood was flowing in the far
city of Erzerum; in country lanes, in farmhouse kitchens, and beneath
blossoming apple trees she had told to wide-eyed children her tales of
saints and heroes, and of holy places.
These landmarks of the woods and coast villages lent a consistency and
coherence to her life as she grew older, which not even the complete
emancipation of Raphael and little Mary could entirely disturb.
Through her repeated visits to them and her eager reception of those
sacramental elements of which they were the symbols, she kept close
the past with all its beneficence. It was doubtless in an effort
to strengthen this coherence of which she felt such need that, the
year following Mary Wescott’s marriage and that of her own Mary, she
discarded her suit and hat and returned to the gold-laced bodice and
the red silk handkerchief. These she never again relinquished, in spite
of the pressure at home and the fast changing modes of those complacent
years.
She knew the coast of Maine as few natives knew it and was its best
chronicler during those early years of the new century. She watched
the invasion alike of the summer sojourner and the automobile, and
looked upon both with displeasure, although with the advent of the
former there was increased wealth for her. The latter she scorned to
employ except in the worst of weathers, when she would occasionally
allow some friendly passer-by to carry her to her next stopping-place,
the red pushcart bumping along over the stones in the rear; for she
hated its choking, sputtering voice along the quiet roads and its rude
disturbance of her solitude. She watched children who had feared her
upon her first visits grow to maturity and marry; she brought gifts to
their children. And each year in graveyards above the sea she saw new
white stones, stark and ugly in the wind-swept grass. Before these she
would pause not infrequently, to cross herself and to say a prayer for
the spirits of those who had learned to look upon her with kindliness.
XI
SHORT TWILIGHTS AND DRIFTING PETALS
It was just five years after Mary Wescott’s wedding that, following
unprecedented events in Europe, blood did begin to flow in Erzerum, as
in Mary Christmas’ dream beneath the sumachs. But it was not avenging
blood; and in those awestruck days when the world was rudely shaken
from its serenity, the horror of it was lessened in minds already jaded
by atrocities. In the mind of Mary Christmas, however, it eclipsed
all other catastrophes. The compelling hideousness of it drove sleep
from her tired eyes and within them lighted that red gleam which so
many years ago had frightened the Wescotts at their quiet table. She
was tormented day and night by the intensity of the fire within her.
Seeking blindly the comfort that lies in common suffering, she pushed
the papers with their ghastly, burdened words between the elbows of
Raphael as he leaned upon his cigar case and pondered his stock; but
he, after an impatient glance, turned to the quotations on the tobacco
market. Little Mary, it is true, wept with her mother for a few secret
moments, but her eyes never left the door through which her husband
might at any minute come to stare at her and to shrug his big shoulders.
The next two years, driven by a restlessness that dislodged even the
sacredness of custom, Mary Christmas began her country traveling early
and continued it late. The very exercise of walking long miles over bad
roads, muddy in the spring, frozen and rutty in late autumn, loosened
the tension under which she was living. Moreover, in the outlying
villages and farming districts there were those who, in the light of
present events, listened more eagerly to her stories of ancient wrong
and cruel aggression, and gave her not only the sympathy for which
she had craved, but the more welcome support of their own righteous
indignation.
Finally, as the months dragged themselves wearily into years, she found
in Father Wescott an outlet for all her pent-up hostility and for her
growing resentment toward those governmental heads who were willing
to watch and wait while ships were sunk, and disaster, confusion,
and death stalked from the English Channel to the Persian Gulf. He
not only shared the resentment of Mary Christmas; he fed it with his
own indignant protests. If _his_ party were in Washington, he
told her, things would be different! Mary Christmas knew nothing of
parties, but her worshipful gaze, which the years had not dimmed,
told him as plainly as words that in her opinion the country had made
one incomprehensible error in judgment when it had overlooked him as
leader of its destinies. And although Father Wescott’s native modesty
did not allow him for a moment to share her opinion, he did echo the
sputterings of his automobile as he told his town and county what he
thought of the Administration!
But Father Wescott and Mary Christmas waited yet more months before
the country righted itself in their estimation--months during which
Father Wescott forgot that his business was law and Mary Christmas
that hers was trade, during which Roger and John, the one in the Law
School at Cambridge, the other at the foot of the ladder in a Boston
firm, studied reluctantly, all the while conscious that in spite of
themselves they were marking time.
In the early spring of 1917, impelled by the certainty that watchful
waiting was at last at an end and by the bitter, awful knowledge,
which she until now had been unwilling to admit to herself, that no
avenging spirit would ever quicken her son, Mary Christmas escaped to
the country while the frost was still in the roads and before the first
arbutus, blooming in the cold moss of some woodland rock, touched the
misty air with its perfect fragrance. The last three years had left
indelible marks upon her in the thinness of her face and in the lines
now irretrievably set about her mouth, in the haunting depths of her
eyes and the sagging of her shoulders. They had marked her spirit, too,
though that flickered on, choked and smothered, it is true, but wanting
only draught and fuel to flame again.
Both were supplied, miraculously it seemed to her, in mid-April. For
three weeks she had plodded tirelessly on through days of intermittent
mist and rain along the most remote of her routes, her thoughts
inextricably entangled in a web in which relief over the declaration
of war struggled with bitterness over the indifference which this new
country had so mysteriously engendered in her children. And while she
pushed her red cart over the roads, depending for hospitality upon the
kindness of those to whom for years she had ministered in a way she
little understood, two young men in uniform decided to stay for an
afternoon in Portland on their way home to say good-bye to their father
and mother. What happened that afternoon in the cigar store of Raphael
Christmas only one of the three to-day could tell you; but there must
have been something persuasive about the square shoulders of the older
visitor and the straight brown eyes of the younger, for, the next day
but one, a big Scandinavian sold tobacco to whoever wanted it, and told
anybody who asked that the proprietor had gone to war.
Stopping in a small village to get the papers of three days past, Mary
Christmas saw on the front page of one of them a picture and a story
which set the muscles of her arms and legs into such tremor that she
could with difficulty push her cart through the gate of the adjoining
churchyard and up to the steps of the white church. Here she gratefully
sat down in a warm ray of sunshine and tried to sense it all. And as
she saw Raphael’s dark face gazing into her own and read the words that
told of the Erzerum tragedy of more than twenty years ago and that
spoke of Raphael as a hero, ready to avenge, she felt care slip from
her shoulders just as years before she had felt quick relief upon the
setting down of her great bundle on some friendly doorstep. She felt,
too, as she sat there in the sunlight, the rekindling of her spirit,
which, now smothered no longer, burst again into ready flame. If John
Wescott could have seen her then, leaning back against the paneled door
of the old church, her red silk handkerchief on her shoulders, the sun
catching alike the light from the gold coins in her ears and from the
tears that rolled down her tired face, he would have felt convinced
that the impulsive extra hour which he took to interview the city
editor of a Portland paper and which cost him six hours at home was
well worth the price.
When Mary Christmas had convinced herself by twelve more readings
that what the words said was indeed true, she left the church steps,
stopping only to fold the miraculous paper within her gold-laced
bodice and to say a prayer of thanksgiving, and wheeled her cart into
a neighboring barn. Here she left it while she journeyed by stage to
the nearest sizable town, returning the next day with the necessary
purchases for the new work which, she decided, had become hers to
perform. From her packages she brought forth an American flag with
which she covered her cart, and tiny flags of the Allies which she
tacked securely in the corners. Thus decorated, and armed with a
veritable sword of the spirit, she started forth, choosing the most
outlying roads she knew.
That spring and summer, and late into the fall, she forgot her business
of selling in this new and self-imposed task of recruiting for the
army. Into the most remote of farming districts she pushed her gay
cart; in farmhouse kitchens, at crossroads, and among groups of men
at work in the hayfields she gave her stirring message. Nor did she
scorn to use any and every means of persuasion. When the story of her
own wrong at the hands of the enemy failed to arouse more than an
ill-expressed compassion, when the plea for making the world secure
against tyranny and the simple urge of natural patriotism were not
provocative of determination, her racial shrewdness came to her aid
with the suggestion of expediency.
“They will make you go soon,” she would cry to half a dozen young
men, impressed in spite of themselves. “Soon they will come and take
you whether you want to go or not. You are not such a hero then! Go
now--like my son here! Go now and offer yourselves! That is the way!”
Reluctantly she left the roads when the lowering skies foretold snow
and when the hurrying November sun set in a horizon of pale green
beneath overhanging clouds of purple. That winter she gave up her
trade among the railroad towns, and, instead of weaving laces, knit
rough socks of gray wool, sitting with little Mary in the hot back room
of the bakeshop. A peace came to brood over her in those days with
their short twilights. It made her oblivious of her toil-racked body,
and in some strange, quiet way quenched the flames of her spirit until
they glowed in a clear, steady light, a “light that never was on sea or
land.” And when another spring with its drifting petals brought her the
news that Raphael had given his life in France to avenge his father’s
death and to alleviate, if but for a little time, the suffering of the
world, she was quite content.
The drifting petals of that spring brought a message to the Wescott
village also, a message that made Father Wescott again walk up the
street with his collar and tie in their rightful places. He looked old
and stooped as he opened the white gate and went up the driveway in
the drowsy, contented hum of bees and the sweet odor of apple blossoms
in warm sunlight. He did not go back to his office that day or the
next, but sat with Mrs. Wescott in the library or helped her with the
housework, which must be done as carefully and methodically as though
they were not surrounded by some grim, overwhelming presence. And on
the third afternoon, as they sat in the library, Mr. Wescott pasting
stray leaves in old books and Mrs. Wescott darning some table linen
which she had twice thrown away, they heard the grating of the driveway
gravel and saw between the porch shutters a quick flash of red and
black and gold. Then Mary Christmas burst open the door, and, after
throwing herself at Father Wescott’s feet, sat with them quietly until
the shadows on the orchard grass grew longer and a little girl drove
her cow down the hill.
But after her lunch of sandwiches and milk she did not go until she had
entered into every room of the great, empty house. Sitting together
in the library, they heard her softened footsteps upstairs, visiting
every one--that in which Roger had been born, those where he had played
and slept, and in each they heard her high, quavering voice singing a
prayer-song for the rest of his spirit. Downstairs too she knelt and
prayed--in the library where he had read his books, in the dining-room
where he had eaten, even in the great old stable where so many years
ago he had played the part of the priest in the Etchmiadzin church.
Then, her sacrifice ended, she went her way up the hill.
An hour later it came to them who still sat in the library that she had
looked old and tired as she had said good-bye. They might so easily
have taken her on her way! Father Wescott, reproving himself for his
thoughtlessness, coaxed his car into reluctant motion, and with Mrs.
Wescott beside him choked up the hill to overtake Mary Christmas and
to carry her to her next stopping-place or, better still, to bring her
back again with them.
They did not go far. By the path that led to the pasture bars and
thence to Mary Wescott’s boulder, they saw the familiar red cart, still
bedecked with its colors. Halting the car beside it, they hurried up
the path, over the hummocks starred with violets, and through the
alders to the boulder. There by the spring, beneath a wild plum-tree,
white with bloom, lay Mary Christmas in the evening light, her face
relaxed, her busy hands at rest. A song sparrow on the stunted pine
tree filled the still air with notes like crystals in sunlight, and
a robin called from the wild crab-apple on the hill. But Father and
Mother Wescott knew, as they stood there looking upon the quiet face
beneath the white blossoms, that Mary Christmas’ restless, shining
spirit was heeding none of these. It had gone, they knew, in a quick
flash of light across the gray, tossing ocean, to her own land, where
for a season it would wander with the winds on treeless plains, look
upon the ark which no eye had seen, and leave its healing power in the
dim aisles of the church at Etchmiadzin. Then, satisfied and at peace,
it would go to dwell in the Everlasting Halls of God!
XII
MARY CHRISTMAS DAYS
There are still Mary Christmas days in the Wescott village--days when
the sun lies warm on the orchard grass and the petals drift through
the bright air like great lazy snowflakes. Then Father Wescott puts
away the town report and certain prophetic statistics as to the fall
election, closes the office, and comes home at noon for the day,
swinging up the street in precisely the manner of so many years ago.
In the afternoon, under the apple trees, he drowses a bit over his
paper, unless there happens to be a disturbing article on the spread
of Radicalism, while the bees hum among the blossoms, and while Mrs.
Wescott, whom the right of franchise has not changed a whit, completes
a red mitten for her oldest grandson. But when the shadows grow longer
and the village children drive home their cows, they talk of Mary
Christmas. In the evening, as they sit on the porch, Mrs. Wescott
wears a shawl in whose delicate traceries are birds and butterflies,
stars and tired sheep. Once Father Wescott shamefacedly took a string
of red stones from his pocket and put it around his neck, where it
glowed against his white collar and shirt, red as the geraniums in the
porch boxes or as great drops of blood. It must be admitted, however,
that during this procedure he was genuinely embarrassed and kept a
vigilant eye on the driveway and the door.
North of Boston, in the city where William Howe, still a Democrat, is
now president of his company, there are Mary Christmas days. When the
first one comes in June, Mary Wescott hurries home from a mothers’
meeting or from the League of Women Voters, gives the surprised
maid the remainder of the day, and gets dinner herself. Then, while
she prepares the baby’s orange juice (for the times simply demand
that she renounce sulphur and molasses), she tells the children of
Mary Christmas and of all the manifold things that, because of Mary
Christmas, happened to her when she was a little girl. William comes
home as the light softens to find a rush of children at the gate, apple
blossoms on the table, and Mary in a blue gingham apron with some
flour on her pink cheek. And that evening in a quiet house they wonder
what on earth they can give their children to compensate for no Mary
Christmas!
In the college town where Cynthia lives there are Mary Christmas days.
When one steals over the campus and lures students from their books,
Cynthia, too, is lured from Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter and other
ecclesiastical heroes who, colleges so often decree, shall be studied
in the spring. Forgetting them all for a season, Cynthia talks about
words--the glory and magic that lie in so many of them: _silent_,
_holy_, _high_, _garden_. And as her students listen,
perhaps a trifle wonderingly, they see a blue light, the color of
harebells in sunshine, creep into her clear gray eyes and linger there.
But, although they do not know it, there is one word that she does not
name--a word of three letters which years ago unlocked for her the
treasure-house of ages.
There are Mary Christmas days in the city where John works, the city
of Mr. Longfellow and, during her sojourn, of Mary Christmas herself.
Now John has grown into one of those mysterious men who know all about
stocks and bonds and reserve banks and the other entanglements of high
finance. When he reads that “East Cuba Sugar 7½s were active in 106¼,”
he is no more puzzled than you or I when we read that “Mr. and Mrs.
Brown left immediately for Kansas City and points west.” Moreover,
upon occasion he can talk in such terms. But when a Mary Christmas day
brings drifting petals to the old gardens in Portland, and the sun lies
warm on St. Stephen’s church, John forgets all matters of high finance.
His associates have even known him to become irritated when asked a
simple question concerning Missouri Pacific 4s. A restlessness drives
him early from the office and sets him walking far into the country,
along a coast road where the long shadows of the trees are mirrored in
the still water. It is late when he comes back to his rooms, but not
too late for him to light his pipe and to sit by his open window in
the white moonlight. And more than once on nights like these--though
we confess it in the strictest confidence--he has drawn from a faded
green-and-gold box in his trunk a silk cap with many colors in orderly
rows. This he puts upon his head in a most absurd fashion, for it is
much too small for him; and, watching the blue spirals of smoke, he
dreams of a certain day long ago when his father came up the street,
_wearing his collar and tie_!
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Italics are represented thus _italic_.